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Structuring an E-mail Newsletter for Your Fans [FREE TEMPLATE]

One of the most valuable assets you will obtain during your music career is a healthy list of fan e-mail addresses. Unlike posting status updates on social networks, which tend to get lost in the mess of everyone’s news feeds, sending an e-mail to a fan is a direct channel of communication. A fan that opts into receiving your e-mail newsletter usually means that he or she wants to hear from you, and is interested in you and your music.

Since you are communicating directly to your fans, it is important that you get it right from the beginning. One big element of developing a newsletter strategy is the overall look, feel, and presentation of your newsletter. Is your newsletter just simple, plain text at the moment? If it is, consider livening up your newsletter a bit with this free HTML template download.

Design your own HTML E-mail Newsletter

If you have very basic HTML & CSS knowledge, this should be a breeze for you. There are several mailing list services (ReverbNation, FanBridge, AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc) that provide you with customized templates, but I always found that they rarely seemed to work nicely with the look and feel of the artist. So why not create our own?

Here is a free e-mail newsletter template that you can snag for free, if you wish…

I know it looks pretty generic, but that’s the point – spice it up with your own images and colors! Open the “newsletter-template.html” file in any text editing program (Notepad, TextEdit, TextMate, Dreamweaver, etc) and change fonts, background colors, images, borders, and more.

Also, I’d like to point out that simplicity with e-mail newsletters is becoming more important, since more and more people are reading e-mails from their mobile devices. If you have an elaborate newsletter design, it is very possible that your e-mails will not look right on cell phones and other handheld devices.

This template uses inline CSS, which means that it is embedded within the HTML that creates the template’s structure. Many mailing list services don’t allow you to attach separate stylesheets, or even include them in the “

” section of the same document, so you have to write the CSS “in line” with the HTML.

Here’s another example newsletter that I created using this same template:

stephen, im not totally sure, but i don't think so. they give you a variety of custom templates to choose from. they might let you modify the html behind them? Not sure : give it a try!

http://twitter.com/MalkiMeansKing Malki Means King

Im liking the templates. Mailchimp has worked for me, because it also tracks e-mails and lets you know how many people actually read them. Check out one I sent Recently: http://eepurl.com/MyDL maybe I can load your template in mailchimp

http://tightmixblog.com Chris B.

Now that I think about it, Mailchimp's really aren't that bad at all. FYI – My template is definitely meant be used along with a mailing list service provider like Mailchimp, FanBridge, ReverbNation, etc. Being able to see the statistics is a huge part of it.

I looked at your e-mail newsletter, and here's my two cents about it. I am going to be completely honest with you. To me, it looks and feels a bit spammy. If it were sent to me, I'm not so sure I would read it. Large fonts, and a bit too many calls-to-action (watch my video, download this, come out to that show, etc) makes it looks busy, and a little confusing.

If you are reluctant to use my template, totally cool. To improve your current newsletter, however, I would recommend using a thinner template so it looks nice when opened on mobile devices. Also, talk to your fans more personally in the newsletter, instead of shouting at them. Simply saying “Hello [person's name]” is a good start! Many mailing list services allow you to automatically insert the recipient's name into the e-mail, using some kind of shortcode like [FIRSTNAME] or something.

Also, try to reduce the font size of everything, and only include one call-to-action in each e-mail. Keep the e-mails short, concise, personable, and to the point. For one e-mail, mention your video….mention a music download in another e-mail, and mention a live show in another e-mail…spread them out over a month, and there you go — 3 solid e-mails to your fans in 30 days! Between 1-4 emails a month is usually a good number that won't make them feel bothered or compelled to unsubscribe.

I would recommend subscribing to Color Theory's mailling list (http://www.colortheory.com) for some incredibly awesome examples on great e-mail newsletters (and good music, too).

Ah, forgot to mention this before, but your website it dope! excellent job with that.

Jon Ostrow

This is an excellent article! As great as social media can be, there is nothing as powerful as the direct access you have to fans through their email.

http://tightmixblog.com Chris B.

amen to that, brother.

http://twitter.com/EllaMiuz Ella Miuz

(I know these posts are a little old, but I’ve been going through all the recent ones…)

That’s great!

I kind of did the same thing with FanBridge (thanks for the link) however.

First of all, I got your #1 tip of mistakes to avoid already – about promoting too early..

BUT I added the FanBridge box to my splash page, just in case someone might want to sign up to hear my releases. I don’t want lost opportunities. :-D

I also was already tweeting, but that is different, right? Anyone can tweet. For SOME things it’s good to start early or as early as we’d like – same thing for the domain name / snatching other website usernames / and at least having a splash page. I think.

I will add that even before I saw that article, I wanted to wait to comment on blogs. Eh! That might be silly.

Anyway, back to FanBridge… the templates mostly didn’t work for me – nothing for pop music – HOWEVER – the red/black grungy one without the red header did work with my own. One can’t customize the background image, but can with the header.